


Crimson Tears

by SketchLockwood



Category: 15th Century CE RPF, Medieval RPF, The Sunne in Splendour - Sharon Kay Penman, The White Queen (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-18
Updated: 2015-01-18
Packaged: 2018-03-08 03:50:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3194207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SketchLockwood/pseuds/SketchLockwood
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What happens when George introduced Edward to his supposed father?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Crimson Tears

“More wine ma mere?” Cecily Neville nodded to her sons offer, she was a woman of few words. A woman who used phonemes only after careful and precise thought, she would not needlessly waste her energy on speech where it was not needed. She had always found it to be better that way. 

Edward was pouring the wine when the crashing doors in the outer apartments stole his attention. He cursed as wine stained the table and floor. Cecily did not need to hide her shock, she was used to her eldest son’s curses. It was not as though he had been raised with no reason for such obscenities. From the day of his birth he had been given more than his due reason to curse. He rose quickly, turning towards the door, forcing them open just in time for George, perhaps the least welcome person at court, to barge through, throwing a hooded man upon the floor. 

“What the bloody hell is this George?” Cecily stood, wanting to stand between her sons as Edward grabbed George’s collar pulling him close. “I advise you have very good reason for this utter breech of etiquette and your unwelcome intrusion into not only a private audience but also into my personal life.”

“Personal life brother?” George smirked, wiping the expression clean from his face as Edward’s expression hardened. In a final fight for dignity, the Duke removed his brother’s hand and brushed his collar. “As it happens brother, you might be well pleased to know I have every reason to-“ 

George stopped as Edward’s attention shifted to the new and silent arrival in the room. Richard, the youngest of the brothers possessed the irking ability to show up silently and without being noticed. Today however, his presence was one not disguised. 

“Are we all to forget our stations tonight?” Edward stepped away, gulping from his recently filled goblet before slumping into a chair. “George, you were explaining you intrusion, before I have mind to have your head removed. Who is our guest and why is he here?” Edward’s eyes followed his mother as she walked toward the fire, resting her arm on the sill above it as she looked at the flames, apparently ignoring all her children were saying.   
“He was caught saying treasonous words in London.”

“Do you not think it ironic that the same could have been said for you not a month past?” Richard sounded tired as he leaned against the wall. Eyes cold enough to chill Edward’s spine. 

“Dickon, not now. Go on George, why do you see it appropriate to tell me and not Richard, for he is constable of England as you well know.”

“I thought these were words that would be particularly appropriate for your ears your grace.” George waited a moment, waiting for his brother’s approval to continue, a signal he received in the form of a brief hand wave. “He said that he is the King of England’s father.” 

George looked almost smug as every pair of eyes fixed upon him. 

“He said what?” Edward rose to his feet, approaching the man, bending to knock the hood from his face. 

“And who is he? Do you have a name?” Richard sounded, leaning forward from the wall and approaching the man slowly, as a predator closing in on its prey. 

“I do.”

“Silence George.” Edward snapped, slamming his hand down too hard on the chair as he rose back to full height. “He can say it, unless you have removed his tongue for such foul lies about myself and such shaming accusations of our mother.”

“It would have been my right Edward, cept’ I thought you might like to have him questioned.”

“Perhaps, what’s your name?” For a moment the room was filled with silence. Cecily jumped as her eldest son shouted for the first time in as long as he could remember, losing the cool calm he was so famed for. “I said what is your name? Do you dare defy your king in his presence? Have you so forgotten yourself?”

“My name your…. Your Grace is Edward Bleybourne.” No one had seen Cecily go white, no one had paid her much attention. She had been the forgotten presence until the sound of shattering glass filled everyone’s ears. Tears pricked her eyes as she turned away, hand pressed to her mouth. Edward glanced at her, barely hearing the words of man he already wanted to silence. “Kentish archer, soldier and servant to his grace the Duke of York in Rouen in-“

“Hold your tongue!” Edward spun quickly, watching as Richard comforted their mother, sitting her in a chair and holding her hand. “You lie!”

“Pointless denial my-“

“Now you see why I brought him here Edward? You see the threat he has posed?”

“All I see is that you have brought him here to upset our lady mother.” Richard’s tone was one of ice as he stood, facing George. 

“She has need to be upset, memories of past regrets no doubt. Past regrets that have seen my son on the throne-“ He was silenced as a hand connected with his cheek. 

“I am not your son. I am the true heir to his noble grace the duke of York, Plantagenet and Mortimer blood runs through my veins. I am not the bastard spawn of Kentish peasant. Your insanity will not save you. Though clearly you are hardly fit to stand trial.”

“Edward-“

“Silence mother-“

“I will speak!” Cecily moved forward, hands shaking as she approached, finally resting a soft shaking palm on her King’s elbow. “Alone Richard, George. Please give us leave.” She watched as, in compliance, her two youngest children started for the door. She spoke only as Richard’s hand rested on their prisoners shoulder. “No, he is to stay.” 

“As you please mother.”   
“It doesn’t please me-“ Edward muttered the words, glaring at George’s smirk as he responded to his mother’s retaliation. 

“And Edward you don’t always get what you want and had I taught you that sooner perhaps I you wouldn’t have killed your cousins for a sham of a marriage.” He said nothing in response, rather sat in his chair resting feet on the table. She sighed, not lowering herself enough to teach him manners. He was King, she sometimes forgot the etiquette was whatever he made it, whenever he made it. To argue on that was futile. 

“Edward listen to me, you cannot defend me with a lie.”   
“A lie?”

“What he suggests, that we had relations, it is not entirely false.”

“Entirely? Mother you laid with him or you did not?”

“Then I did.” 

“And I-“

“That is a lie, you are your fathers son. The heir of York and rightful King of England, this man has no right to disclaim that. But not hang him-“

“And how can you be so sure that he is not lying of that if you….” He didn’t finish his sentence, turning away as he did as though betrayed. Cecily bit her lip, fighting back tears of heart wrenching memories. That was how Richard had been, how her sweet husband had reacted when he had found out. For a moment Edward, the son so unlike his father had been the very image of his father, shunning all doubt from her mind. 

“Edward, I can know because with child when I lay with this man.”

“You mean to say-“

“That your father returned to Rouen a month before this man brought himself back into my life.”

For a moment Edward looked satisfied, as though all he had heard was all the evidence he needed. “Back? You said back.”

“Edward, we were lovers in our youth. He was a page for my father and-“

“And that is why you would not have me kill him, for you are in love with him even now?” 

“You understand love Edward, think you married for love.”   
“But you did not marry this man mother.”

“Because Edward, I understood my duty as it was. I did not make a shambles of my marriage and my lineage. I did not make a shambles of this family, of your dynasty. I did what was expected of me where you could never own up to that responsibility. So it’s now to pay back old debts, I have tolerated your marriage to that whore as I promised I would do by being your subject. Now it is time for you to follow your promise, to a be a benevolent and forgiving king, to be tolerant where others could not. You will not put this man to death.” 

Cecily watched as the cogs worked their clockwork inside his head. Watching as emotion filled his eyes, finally fleeing as soft lids covered cool blue eyes. “Will!” Cecily watched in breathless anticipation as the doors opened and William Hastings entered, bowing deep as he did. “Take this man to the Tower, where tomorrow he will be hung, drawn and quartered for treason.” Cecily opened her mouth to object, sound barely escaping her lips as Edward’s eyes, now icy in their shade fixed upon her. “And should my mother wish the final word on this also, she can have it as she joins him in his fate.” 

Cecily said nothing as her son left the room, slamming the door to his bed chamber. For a moment she paused, for a moment she thought she heard sobbing from deep within that room. For a moment she questioned her own sanity, was it a mothers curse to want to comfort her children when they had crossed too far into darkness to seek redemption?


End file.
